Why has the Right gone missing on the surveillance state?

It took a while but Fairfax finally lumbered into action today on the remarkable proposals to dramatically expand government surveillance of Australians that are before the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, editorialising that intelligence agencies needed to explain why they want to retain Australians’ internet data, after its security specialist Dylan Welch had covered the proposals yesterday.

Yesterday the ABC also provided some detailed coverage; every specialist IT outlet had already covered the proposals in detail on Tuesday and Wednesday, after Crikey broke the proposals on Monday afternoon. A quick reprise of the proposals: the government wants to undertake some sensible housekeeping amendments relating to ASIO, the establishing legislation for which is showing some definite whiskers. But the government has also put on the table, for consideration, proposals including:

keeping all Australians’ telecommunications and internet data for 2 years;

wiretapping Twitter, Facebook and other social media;

allowing ASIO to plant material on people’s computers, and destroy material, and go through a third party’s computer to do so;

criminalise refusing to cooperate with government decryption attempts, so you could go to gaol for refusing to surrender your password;

freeing up ASIO agents to break the law if it helps them stay undercover; and

enabling non-ASIO intelligence agencies to work with ASIO to spy on Australians.

News Ltd’s papers, apart from recycling a single AAP piece today, have said nothing, a failure that is thoroughly perplexing. Here is a Labor government proposing draconian extensions to surveillance powers. What better opportunity for the bastion of “campaigning journalism” that loves nothing more than monstering Labor? There isn’t even a need to confect a target for a campaign, as News Ltd did with the BER program And yet… silence. It’s all the more bizarre given the company is in the throes of a furious campaign against the alleged threat of government regulation to freedom of speech.

If News Ltd and its dimwit spear-carriers like Janet Albrechtsen are to be believed, the proposals arising from the Convergence Review and the Finkelstein Inquiry are only one step short of Soviet re-education camps. Yet Labor wheels out a real threat to free speech far more sinister than a mere public interest test — our intelligence agencies, after all, have a sterling record of spying on journalists — and… nothing. How about the Institue of Public Affairs, who can normally be relied on to stand up free speech and attack regulatory overreach… or for that matter regulatory reach full stop? Not a squeak.

The issue was considered unworthy of the institute’s weekly round-up of left-wing outrages. How about Andrew Bolt, who if nothing else is hyper-sensitive to parliamentary threats to free speech, having been the victim of an appalling legal assault on his own? Nothing. Why has the Right gone missing on a clear and present threat to basic rights? Where’s the mistrust of government and readiness to go over the top when we actually need it in response to a clear and present danger? Is it because the issue of online freedom is somehow perceived to be one of the Left, despite its strong libertarian dimensions?

You don’t need to be of any particular political orientation to be offended about these proposals, and offended by the reasoning used to justify them. The justification used in the discussion paper, and it was one repeated by Joint Committee member Andrew Wilkie yesterday, is that our surveillance framework needs to be updated to address the move from the telecommunications to the internet era. That reasoning is, to use my favourite Greinerism, a nonsense.

The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act hasn’t been left gathering dust on the legislative shelf since before the arrival of the internet. It’s been updated regularly in the last decade - more years than not have seen an amendment to that act or an extension of ASIO’s powers in our parliament. In fact, bizarrely, it’s the very frequency with which the acts have been updated that the discussion paper insists is all the more reason for an overhaul (and expansion) of the whole régime (yes, I’ve thought and re-thought through that and I can’t understand it either). The other reason it’s a nonsense is a more subtle one that intelligence agencies and politicians neither want to understand nor will accept.

The proposals to start wiretapping social media use, store your data, control communications infrastructure and lock you up when you won’t cough up the password to your laptop or phone are classic War On The Internet measures. They seek to re-impose analog-era control structures on a world fundamentally altered by interconnectedness. In the analog world of wiretapping telecommunications (which originally was, literally, sticking an alligator clip onto a wire), citizens had virtually no means of communications except a government-controlled telephone system — recall the grand days of dictatorships shutting down phone lines to the outside world at moments of crisis?

There was no network, no connectedness for citizens, because they could never talk to more than one person at a time, making their interaction easy to monitor. That single, controllable piece of copper linking people one at a time has been replaced with a network that connects everyone to everyone else, globally, simultaneously. But governments want to still employ the copper-era control mechanism, as if nothing has changed except the technology.

The technological change is trivial compared to the social change being wrought across the world, which those who were in control in the analog era don’t understand and want to keep at bay. And the urge to keep control and monitor is coupled with an ever-stronger refusal to share information with citizens; governments want a surveillance state for everyone but themselves; they insist on their own right to operate in secrecy. The luxury of redaction is only for governments, not their citizens.

This is far less about being Left or Right than about being wrong, fundamentally wrong, about how our societies and the way we function in them are changing. It’s that change these measures are aimed at stopping and controlling.

The two year storage requirement reminds me of the recent campaign by the copyright mob . They security people already have laws to monitor and gather data on people they suspect so why do they need wider laws on everyone ? Until there is someone or an independent department watching the watchers there should be no extension of their reach . Even then there is no justification for widening their powers . I,m not sure its about security at all because they have already have laws to do their ” job ” . Copyright ?

it’s as thought they think terrorists (and i’m under no illusion that they actually exist in the manner the state wishes us to think) will post their intention as a facebook update. also some of the predictable partisan comments i’ve seen (even linking the greens into it) are just ridiculous, and to see andrew wilkie is having a go trumpeting this so-called “overhaul”, well lets just say the odds are stacked against them not going through.

The two years recording of people’s internet traffic is very worrying if some of what is now legal one day becomes illegal.

We know that Conroy (and Rudd and Gillard) were originally wanting to block all x-rated content as part of their filter.

Imagine if one day the government not only banned downloading of such content but also possessing it. The government would then have a record of everyone who had legally viewed the content before the change of law. This could lead to it being deemed that it is reasonable to check the computer of some people to ensure that the newly banned content has been deleted or to prosecute those who have not deleted the the content.

The Alternative Liberal Party (ALP) have made a fuss recently about “Labor values”. I suspect that one reason The Age took so long to report on this is that they don’t want to criticise Labor (and give an example of current Labor values) just before the Melbourne by-election. The story was only covered today because it had become such a major story that they had to cover it.

“Is it because the issue of online freedom is somehow perceived to be one of the Left, despite its strong libertarian dimensions?” Yep. That’s basically it. Free speech for me, but not for thee, says the Right.

The reason why we hear nothing from many on the right regarding free speech and human rights as laid out in your article is because they actually vehemently believe in the oppression of others’ rights; unless of course it directly affects them (e.g. Andrew Bolt). You only have to look at their track record on Assylum Seekers (or should i say Illegal Immigrants) and workers’ rights to see they don’t much care for anyone who doesn’t see the world their way. So the right will be sitting back scratching their heads as to why Labor is suddenly seeing things their way; ‘the right way’ (pun intended).

government agents allowed to break laws with impunity, plant “evidence” on “suspects”, gain full access to your computer etc.
Sounds like the perfect place for a crime boss to set up shop.
Or a news journalist.

The dawning must be awful for people when they wake up that this whole issue is apolitical and nothing to do with Left or Right

Not a finger lifted by the Liberals, the deafening silence from News Ltd, even Wilkie seems to be giving in, zilch from The IPA….is this Children Of The Corn?

Draconian security measures are a common thread throughout the whole world and something tells me that if these measures cannot be ushered in through civil, diplomatic methods and political channels, then watch for an event or a series of events of cataclysmic proportions to ensure Job Done. Create the problem provide the fix.

In this series of articles, Bernard Keane has laid out each case point by point with great context. Tremendous piece.

Greg Jones says that this issue is apolitical and ITS BUSINESS TIME asks what can we do?

Draconian security measures,
troops still in Afghanistan,
no gay marriage,
lower taxes (so less spent on government services),
only a 5% cut of 2000 emissions by 2020,
off-shore processing of asylum seekers,
etc, etc

are all policies of the Liberal and Alternative Liberal Party (ALP).

But these are all very political issues because for each the Greens have a significantly different view.

What can people do?

Either accept that they are responsible for these policies and continue to vote for the major parties, or vote Green.

It’s apolitical because the ALP is pushing it and the Liberals are not opposing it. It’s the deja vu of bipartisanship again, perhaps a tripartisanship if we include the MSM. Not Fairfax on this occasion, but as one poster already mentioned, only because they were embarrassed into it.

So, if it is apolitical in that sense…what external force is driving it? Already knowing the answer to the question before asking the question can be problematic and also a health hazard.

ITS BUSINESS TIME - Given the list of issues I wrote in my last post (and I could add more) I think it reasonable to say that it is the main parties who are radical and extremist, and in fact it is the Greens who are closest to the average of how the other OECD countries do things.

Just admit that you are part of the problem, not just on security issues, but on all the other issues as well. And then be pleased that you get what you voted for.

Problem is what proportion of the community are actually really tuned into these things instead of “My Kitchen rules” or “The Block” or whatever crapola that is put in front of them.

9/11 done half the job so we are not far off from the next so called “Terrorist Attack” to take our civil rights & liberties away all in the name of protecting us. I wouldnt be surprised if it happened at the Olympics just to get that kind of “Wallop Exposure” or “shock & awe effect”

Check the bottom story out on here & click on the video link someone has left to the Libor scandal which is really what this current system is a “PONZY’ controllled by the global banking system, & governed by those “elite crooks” we all know of but who’s names remain anonymous.
It just so happens as print is dying you get talk of NBN filters & surveilance of the world community which ihas already happened but they just wanna make it official.

Michael Michael Michael.. this is soo much bigger than the lackey Major and Minor Australian political parties… this is Agenda 21 stuff, BUT people can still have their voices heard by ensuring their local MP is aware that this is not on…

@ IBT - My first post makes clear that I think that the so called security measures might end up being much worse than most people fear.

But even so, I think a good case can be made that many other issues are much more important.

Just to take two examples - our troops are dying and being badly injured in Afghanistan. And Labor’s inaction on climate change is likely to be the only thing that people remember about this time in a hundred years or so.

@Owen Gary - you are right. Most people are sheep and will continue to support our tag-team dictatorship.

9/11 was really a wet dream for “intelligence” agencies in the US, UK and Australia allowing them to get powers that would’ve been unimaginable prior to the towers coming down.

I’m getting on now so perhaps none of this stuff will affect me but I really fear for nation that the ALP & LNP are creating for my children and grandchildren.

I wish my father was still around. I would love to ask his opinion on today’s Australia and whether his WWII time in New Guinea and suffering for many years afterwards, and early death as a result, has to led to a country that he is proud of.

We live in a country where the cook on an asylum seeker’s boat is ‘jailed’ here for 18 months, even though it was probably very clear from early on that he had been tricked into becoming part of the crew.

But that is ok because ‘people smugglers’ are so evil that they deserve such punishment.

Yet the issue that seems to fire people up is that their internet records might be kept for two years.

It is curious that it has taken this latest proposed assault on our liberties to awaken some concerned comment. In the aftermath of 9/11 there was a barrage of repressive legislation passed by the Howard government, fully supported by Labor. This latest set of proposals is only a continuation of that pattern and we have only ourselves to blame. We have allowed the official myth about 9/11 to dominate the media landscape despite the overwhelming evidence that it was perpetrated by elements within the US itself. One of the major reasons for 9/11 was to provide a justification for the so-called war on terror which is nothing m ore than a naked power grab for increasingly scarce resources, the pursuit of full spectrum dominance, and the control of the. Media to prevent an alternative narrative e merging that would challenge this trend.

And before the usual suspects accuse me of being a US hating conspiracy theorist I suggest they take the time to read official US policy papers such as the 2002 Defebce Review, or the 2000 PNAC document in which these ambitions are all set out with that combination of arrogance, hubris and ignorance that is characteristic of American foreign policy.

ITS BUSINESS TIME …you are correct. These lackey and minor political parties just complete the charade for their Minders. The illusion of Left verses Right. The Minders for their part, just bank on peoples ignorance to lobby their elected politicians to something about it, and if they do, that politician representing his or her electorate will be villified, set up, or disgraced in some manner by their condutes the MSM.

It is almost certain that if the FBI people assigned to assist the CIA had been allowed to tell the FBI that very suspect people were entering the US (at which time the CIA stopped their surveillance) then the FBI would have known who to watch and 9/11 would not have happened.

Conspiracy or not, 9/11 was definitely the result of a stuff up in intelligence.

This also dovetails quite neatly into our government’s response to the wikileaks/assange situation. The powers-that-be seem to hate us questioning their authority and exposing their moral decrepitude more than killing or stealing from each other.
As noted above, the Greens are the only political voice raised against this agenda, with a bipartisanship normally reserved only for payrises seen from the liblabs.

I was greatly disappointed with the PM’s response to Wikileaks ( BTW has anybody suffered except embarrassment).

I have a theory and it does not reflect well on the ALP.

Their instinct is to oppose but they ar scared of being seen as soft on national security by the tabloids.

Can you imagine what Abbott’s slavering would have been if Gillard had said about Wileleaks that it was no biggies ( and so far it hasn’t been). Jone, Bolt and that rat pack would have gone mental.

Under pressure and fighting on so many fronts she went with the flow. As a I sat disappointing. Good policy is good politics,

I have ofetn felt that Beazley ( an essentially decent man) feel into the same trap on boat arrivals/Tampa.

He saw how succesful Howard had been in appealing to the baser nature of the electorate and lacked the courage/commitment to hold to his & what should have been his party’s values

Had he done so I reckon he would have been able to ride it out and would have won. The debate we now have would be totally different because he abandoned principal.

The Right is quite good in manouvering the ALP in to these lose /lose positions and it takes more guts than has been demonstrated to date by the ALP to resist the trap.

It makes it an unfortunate choice for us.

A party with no ethics or a party with ethics but only occaisionally the courgae to stick to them.

The Greens have the advantage that the people they appeal to will never give thme govt so they never have to worry about losing power outright but their constituency will, usually deliver the balance of power.

Many people once held out hope that the Greens could provide some relief from this nauseous
two party conjob system, I was one. But I am afraid that Clive Palmer may have thrown something more than just a damp squid at the wall. They are looking more like controlled opposition.

This is part & parcel of the immediate issue an SB type of distraction won’t work mate.

I seen through the Labor/Liberal Collusion 19 years ago, they both answer to “their masters voice$$” & whilst there is this divide & conquer mentality happening in the community by the major parties, people are still fighting amongst themselves, if you yourself focus on the end game or prize you will know where all this is heading.

There will be a major event this year & both parties will use it to dupe the community once again. The financial cartel that governs all has both parties safely in it’s back pocket. If people cant see that 9/11 was a stitch-up they are living in denial.

Thats what all this surveillance nonsense is a deterrent against citizens that are fast waking up.

Owen? are you having a crack at me about something? I agree with you. Are you trying to tell me something? What can you tell me?

Here is a classic example of absolute agenda driven journalism. Last night on Sky News, they interviewed some “actor “or hired hand, ( clown ) who claimed to be an employee at Heathrow Airport.

He was heavily disguised to hide his identity ( as they always are ) prattled on about how lax security was at the airport and explained how anyone could walk a bomb through their systems and that he was very concerned that security for the Olympic games was utterly inadequate and they really needed to do something about it.

It was a carefully scripted and dishonest conjob using scare tactics to justify even tougher security measures and inflict even more pain on travellers and create an atmosphere of fear and loathing….it was all bullshit.

MWH: Yes, most people are sheep. Which is just the way our politicians, journalists and media owners want it to be. You don’t want to have television viewing programmed do you? On commercial television we (our company XYZ) spend squillions on arranging a collection of ads together, with artistry and finesse, then, and only then do we commission a film company to make a reality show which has to fit into the empty spaces.

Haven’t you noticed all the empty space given to the arts and culture crowd to have their museums and art galleries? All to leave old ruined buildings just lying on a site that could be priceless for redevelopment, or for building a few more footy fields. Occasionally governments get it right as in the ripping apart a public park in order for a little bloke from England to play with his toy racing cars. Our city, Melbourne takes pride and joy in running the Grand Prix at a permanent, and hideously expensive, loss, year after year, after year. This is what the sheep want. Now who are we to quibble with this wisdom? If Australia wanted more intellectuals God would have provided them.

I thought that it had been made clear that Palmer said that the Greens were part of a CIA plot because he knew it would get lots of press and would act as a distraction for something else. Give the guy credit - it worked.

You are not seriously suggesting that the CIA are linked with the Greens are you?

These crooks are the true terrorists yet I notice they don’t plan to bring them to book yet for the sake of Laura Norder in NSW they’re willing to jail a simpleton who hangs out with his few ( not much smarter) mates. A collective gang that would have the wit to ousmart a toilet brush and as conspirators would struggle to operate a phone